Hub at East Lansing making progress, targeting next summer for completion

With the summer getting into full swing, several construction projects in East Lansing are taking significant strides towards completion.

One project under way on Grand River right now is The Hub in East Lansing, a 10 story project that will feature retail and parking space at the ground level and nine floors of residential space above. Georgio's Gourmet Pizzeria and 7-Eleven will move into the ground floor and occupy a portion of the retail space. Unlike the Center City District project, none of the residential space will be reserved for senior residents.

East Lansing Director of Planning, Building & Development Tim Dempsey said construction is proceeding on schedule.

All the work that's being done currently is below grade, as construction is still being done on the facility's foundation, but Dempsey said they expect the building to begin going above grade "before the month is out."

This project, like other high rise projects has required fairly substantial foundation work," Dempsey said. "I think a lot of people see equipment during this time period in which seemingly nothing is happening, but there's actually quite a bit happening below grade so I think we'll see all that kind of expedite here as it goes vertical in the coming months."

While this project is going to be worked on throughout this summer, Dempsey said it should not have a major impact on traffic flow in the area

"Over the summer time the project should be pretty much as it is now," Dempsey said. "They do have a little bit of infrastructure work, underground utility stuff that may potentially have short term lane adjustment implications but those should be relatively short term."

City Councilmember Aaron Stephens talked about some of the benefits this project will have for MSU students in the East Lansing community.

Stephens said that he is a proponent of having students have accessible housing near campus and that this project will offer another location near campus that students can live.

"One of the big aspects of that project was the bikeability, so you know they're going to have bike racks actually in the apartments as well as throughout the actual facility," Stephens said.

City Councilmember Shanna Draheim emphasized the positive impacts this project will have on the downtown area and the general public.

"I think it's going to provide some additional retail space down on the first floor that I think will be beneficial to all of East Lansing. I think just adding to the density of people downtown helps our whole downtown thrive and be more, you know, vibrant and robust," Draheim said. "The more people we have living downtown, the more other retail dining and entertainment options become more and more viable. So I think the increased density is a benefit to all of our community."

Dempsey said the current target date for completion of the project is "August of 2019."